StaTuesday: Yelich joins Brewers' rare 5-hit club

It didn't take long for Christian Yelich to put himself into the Milwaukee Brewers record book.

On March 31 in San Diego, Yelich pounded out five hits -- four singles and a double -- in Milwaukee's 7-3 win over the Padres.



It marked the 40th time a Brewers player has racked up at least five hits in a game and the first time it had ever been done in March (previous earliest date: April 11).

Yelich joined four other left fielders who have turned the trick: Ryan Braun (twice), John Briggs, Geoff Jenkins and Randy Ready. Other than pitcher, every position has had a player record a five-hit game for the Brewers, with catcher being the least often (just twice).

In addition to Braun, five other Brewers have had multiple five-hit games with Milwaukee: Jeff Cirillo (three times), Jenkins (3), Mark Loretta (2), Paul Molitor (3) and Fernando Vina (2).

Milwaukee has had two players with five hits in the same game three times -- Darryl Hamilton and Molitor both did it in an 11-2 win over Minnesota on July 28, 1991 as did Scott Fletcher and Kevin Seitzer in a 22-2 pasting of Toronto on Aug. 28, 1992. Ironically, both the Twins and Blue Jays would win the World Series in those seasons. In addition, Braun and Prince Fielder both collected five hits in an 18-1 victory over the Cubs on Aug. 2, 2010.

Yelich didn't hit a home run in his five-hit game, but that's not rare. Just 10 Brewers homered in theirs: Braun, Cecil Cooper, Jonathan Lucroy and Vina had two homers; Cirillo, Von Joshua, Loretta, Don Money and Lyle Overbay had one.

Also on the common side is not drawing a walk. Yelich, like most other Brewers with five or more hits, did not reach by a walk or hit by pitch. Only Vina was hit and just four players walked (Keon Broxton, Loretta, Jenkins and Kevin Reimer).

Yelich also had three runs and an RBI. The most runs for a Brewer when compiling five or more hits is four, done five times. The most RBI is five, done by Fielder and Fletcher.

There's a lot of season left, so perhaps Yelich has another five-hit game in him. If he can do it again, it would be just the third time in Milwaukee franchise history that a player has two such games. Cirillo did it twice in 1999 and Jenkins two times in 2005.

Here's the complete list of Brewers with five-hit games:

And, oh, by the way, Yelich might be the only player in Major League Baseball to have the last five-hit game for two teams. On Oct. 3, 2015 in the first game of a doubleheader against Philadelphia, Yelich went 5 for 5 while playing for Miami. No Marlins player has had five hits since.

Dave Heller is the author of Ken Williams: A Slugger in Ruth's Shadow (a Larry Ritter Book Award nominee), Facing Ted Williams - Players From the Golden Age of Baseball Recall the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived and As Good As It Got: The 1944 St. Louis Browns